WOA: hardware saviour to software challenges?

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With two-and-a-half weeks to go until Microsoft delivers the Windows 8 Consumer Preview, time has run out on holding back and Microsoft is now telling Windows devs just what they're in for with the next version of its PC client.

We're looking at an operating system that fundamentally changes the way apps will be written for, and delivered to, versions of Windows.

And while Microsoft has tried to cushion the blow with some developments on app-coding, this remains a huge step change in the development and consumption of software on Windows. It's also a change that's owes much to Apple's iPad.

The problem for Microsoft is that, unlike Apple, it has so many more commercial and off-the-shelf apps and app partners that it must convince to work the new way. These are people already going for existing Windows.

Windows on ARM (WOA) – unveiled just over a year ago – is the big break point. And it's not so much that the future is WOA and nothing else – Windows 8 will continue on Intel and AMD, so those uncomfortable with Microsoft's new approach can keep on using the old methodologies – the problem is that Microsoft's development and marketing focus is on tablets in general and WOA in particular.

Fittingly, the Windows 8 consumer preview will be officially launched at the Mobile World Congress on 29 February. All previous Windows launches have been Microsoft events supported by PC OEM partners.

We already knew that existing x86 apps would not run on Windows 8. Now, though, we've been told that two apps will squeak though – but that they are Microsoft apps, not partners' apps. The two apps are: a version of Microsoft's Office – the upcoming Office 15, currently in technical preview – and Internet Explorer 10.

Office on ARM was touted by Windows Chief Steven Sinofsky in January 2011 when Microsoft's commitment to WOA was announced, ending Redmond's x86 monogamy.

Now, according to Sinofsky, WOA will "include" desktop versions of the new versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. It is unclear what "include" means in this context; it might suggest Office will come as part of a bundle, but the suite makes some serious money for Redmond so it's unlikely the company would just give this away. Somebody will pay, whether it's the consumer buying the device, the OEM swallowing the price, or Microsoft.

It seems Office 15 will run on the desktop of WOA PCs, and won't be rewritten for the Metro-UI side of Windows 8.

Plug-ins gone

Further, it seems while IE 10 will run on the desktop and Metro editions of Windows 8, plug-ins for Microsoft's browser aren't being allowed on ARM full-stop. That means no Adobe Flash or Microsoft Silverlight, ruling out many line-of-business apps, web media and ads.

Microsoft last year released an IE10 platform preview that saw plug-ins banned from Metro UI but allowed on the desktop.

According to this All-Things-Dinterview that was posted on exactly the same day as Sinofsky's official blog appeared, IE plug-ins for WOA desktop edition are also out with Sinofsky "noting the trend in the industry away from supporting Flash on mobile devices".

This confirms what we have written: that WOA would be locked down tight. Gone are the days of the ever-expandable Wintel PC, bloated with vendor crapware and whose sparkling performance became a wheezy jogger's crawl six months out of the box.